By Idris Joyner ‘20
Staff Writer
Former Cy Young winning pitcher, Roy Halladay died last Tuesday in a plane crash off the Florida Coast, authorities said. The 40-year-old was flying a two-seater plane that crashed off the New Port Richey on the Gulf coast north of the Tampa Bay area. The single engine plane, an Icon A5, crashed in shallow water and was found upside down. An emergency call came in at 12:06 p.m. ET saying that a plane had crashed. There weren’t any distress calls. The sheriff’s office said. It had been noted that in recent weeks, the retired baseball star had been tweeting photos of the plane. One of the posts said: “I have dreamed about owning a A5 since I retired! Real life is better than my dreams!!”
Roy Halladay’s family said they were “heartbroken” and enduring a “time of overwhelming grief” in their first public comments since the former All-Star pitcher died. In a statement released Thursday by Major League Baseball and attributed to the Halladay family, Brandy and teenage sons Braden and Ryan said Halladay, 40, was “selfless in every aspect of his life” and devoted to mastering aviation in the same manner he once dominated major league hitters.
Halladay pitched for 16 seasons in the major leagues, the first 12 with the Toronto Blue Jays and the final four with the Philadelphia Phillies. He won the Cy Young award for the Blue Jays in 2003. In 2003, he went 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA and led the American League with nine complete games.
He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies before the 2010 season and won another Cy Young in his first year with the team. That season he went 21-10 with a 2.44 ERA and threw a perfect game in the regular season and a no-hitter in his first postseason start. The no-hitter is the only one in National League postseason history. Halladay finished his career with 203 wins and a career ERA of 3.38.
